LotS/The Story/Music of the Spheres/Singer of the Song

Singer of the Song
Screaming Barracuda's fingers hovered over her guitar's strings. She took a quick glance around the room. The lounge was mostly empty. It wasn't a popular route, and there were few other passengers aboard the ship. In the far corner, a teenage girl in cyber-gothic garb was gnawing away at the neck of a boy whose attire was similar but enthusiasm perceptibly less. Barracuda gave a mental shrug. Her playing might break their amorous mood, but from the looks of things the boy would welcome the reprieve. Some distance away, an orange Sussurra was drifting around inside his suit, making aimless little patterns of swirly gas. No, he wouldn't mind either.

Then the Piscarian musician's gaze met that of the woman who was sitting opposite her, on the other side of the room. She had a sleeping baby cradled in her arms. A small boy sprawled on the seat next to her, his slumbering head resting in her lap. There was a girl on the other side, perhaps a little older, equally somnolent. Their mother regarded Barracuda with a stare that seemed to say, 'If you do what it looks like you're thinking of doing, I'm going to kill you. And if the jury includes any parents, I'll get away with it.'

Barracuda sighed and put the instrument down. She needed to start bringing in more creds, so she could afford her own tour ship.

Since she couldn't pass the time by playing, she pulled out her datapad to see what people on the information networks were saying about her upcoming gig. However, the answer proved to be 'not very much'. She had to get a new publicist -- one who didn't work out of a grotty apartment above a pizza place, and whose other clients didn't largely consist of animals who performed amusing tricks.

Perhaps her fan mail would cheer her up...

She clicked the icon and watched the messages roll in like a series of tumbleweeds across a dusty prairie.

---
From: BarracudaHater78152
To: Screaming Barracuda
Subject: You Suck! Die! Die! Die!

Your music sucks! Stop playing! I hope you OD on something! ---

Barracuda typed out a reply:

---
From: Screaming Barracuda
To: BarracudaHater78152
Subject: Re: You Suck! Die! Die! Die!

Nice profile picture, douchebag. Let me guess... Your dad wanted a boy, your mum wanted an abortion, and they decided to compromise?

Hey, I see you live on Sian. I know people there. Send me another message and I'll have them come round and kick the crap out of you.

Piss off.

Screaming B
---

Clicking the 'send' button and launching the missive through cyberspace perked her up somewhat. She opened the next message.

---
From: Roxxor_Funk
To: Screaming Barracuda
Subject: Date

Hey! Remember me? I was the fan who kissed you on Mars. Then you hit me in the face with your guitar. Listen, I'm sorry, it was all a big misunderstanding. You're the hottest girl I've ever seen (and I've been to Cythera!). I kind of lost control when I saw you in person. I mean, I've touched myself so many times when I'm listening to your music, and every time it's like you're singing just for me.

But I'm really a great guy. I promise. You'll really like me when you get to know me. How about we go out, so I can make it up to you? I know we're meant to be together!

PS. I've attached a picture of my penis.
---

She opened the attachment. Not bad... Definitely better than most of the ones she got sent.

---
From: Screaming Barracuda
To: Roxxor_Funk
Subject: Re: Date

Thanks for the pic, but I'm really busy with my music right now, and don't have time for relationships.

Check out my latest album when it goes on sale next week. I think you'll really like touching yourself to some of those tunes.

Best wishes,

Screaming B
---

She sent the reply, then deleted the image -- remembering the advice her mother had once given her, when Barracuda had first announced her intention of becoming an interstellar rockstar: "If they find you dead in a hotel room, pumped full of chems, make sure you don't have anything lying around that would embarrass the family."

Her filial duty done, she opened the next message.

---
From: A_Friend_491
To: Screaming Barracuda
Subject: Urgent!

Don't delete this!

I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me -- you're in danger. Serious danger. I can't tell you more over the net. It's not safe. We need to meet in person.

I live in Destev, and I know you'll be here soon to play a gig. I'll explain everything. And I'll have one of your friends with me, so you'll know I'm not just a nut job.

Please, be careful. I don't know if they know yet, but when they do, they'll be out to get you.
---

She sighed. The sender's account was different this time, but the lunacy wasn't. This was the fourth message she'd had from him or her -- all warning Barracuda that she was in some sort of nebulous danger. And now it was worse. The freak lived in Destev, the very city she was heading towards. Crazy stalkers and other such weirdoes were all well and good over the net, but she had better things to do than get shot or stabbed to death at one of her gigs.

Screaming Barracuda deleted the message, then sent one of her own -- asking the venue's manager to put on extra security. With guns. Lots of guns.

And I'll have one of your friends with me...

Her cranial fin twitched, as the words replayed themselves in her mind. She shook her head. No... Just deranged ramblings. She'd heard it all before. It was just part of being an interstellar rockstar...

Kevin Arctora looked out of the window. The world beyond his sanctum was the same as it had always been. But now it seethed with even greater menace. The gleaming tower blocks were rows of mismatched teeth filling a monstrous maw, their dark masses speckled with squares and rectangles of illumination, scraps of gaudy flesh from the creatures they'd devoured. Soon, they seemed to say, soon they would swallow Kevin up as well.

He hadn't been outside for a long time. Not since... He glanced at the wall, at the papers and pictures and holographic screens mounted there. Research. Evidence. Terror. No, he didn't go outside anymore -- because he knew what kinds of things lurked there.

But now... He felt his intestines tighten. Something bubbled within his digestive tract. Soon he'd be out among them. Oh, God... What had he got himself into?

He flopped into the chair in front of his computer desk. No mail. She hadn't replied. Of course not. She'd think he was crazy. Hell, maybe he was. But when her friend arrived... Kevin shuddered. He'd spent years hiding away, earning his living over the net where a bullet couldn't find his brain or a knife his heart, and trying to spread the word as best he could without endangering himself. And now... Now he'd invited one of the most dangerous women in the galaxy to his apartment.

Some of the news reports called her a genocidal maniac. Others called her a hero. But whatever the label, the oceans of blood were the same. And yet if anyone could help Kevin Arctora, it was her. She knew Screaming Barracuda. The Piscarian would listen to her. Besides, who else but a killer could keep Kevin safe from...

He looked at the wall again.

When the door buzzer sounded, his body jerked so hard that he almost tipped his chair over.

Already? She'd forgotten to call first, like she'd said she would. Maybe she'd read Kevin's nervousness in his latest messages, and decided not to give him a chance to bolt.

Kevin took a deep breath. [Player Name] was here to help him... And it was too late to turn back.

The buzzer rang again. Kevin Arctora got up, and went to answer the door.

Silenced

"Watcher_851."

You say the name, pronouncing the underscore. Your helmet trills in recognition and makes the call via its built-in communicator -- leaving your hands free to guide the Dragon Cycle past some of the worst drivers you've ever had the misfortune to encounter. One of them makes an obscene gesture as you pass him by, which you return. He tries to sideswipe you by way of a counter-riposte, but you've already zipped past. The side of his car strikes against the barrier instead, with a shower of sparks and a screech of outraged metal.

The helmet bleeps for perhaps thirty seconds before you terminate the attempt. This is the second time you've tried calling him since you landed at the spaceport. Once, and he may have just been in the bathroom or something. But twice? With a recluse who never leaves his apartment? That's not good...

You twist the throttle and accelerate, speeding down the highway. The lights blur into long streams on either side, vehicles whoosh past as you zip between their metal masses. A sharp turn takes you onto a narrower road. Behind you a startled driver honks a horn that sounds like an angry duck.

A few minutes' riding and a few more turns, all punctuated by blaring horns and screamed profanities, bring you within sight of the location which flashes in the corner of your helmet's display. There are people gathered on the street ahead, babbling, pointing, and in some cases photographing and recording. You've seen enough of the galaxy to know what that kind of thing means.

You stop your bike, jump off, and approach the gawkers.

They're pressed up against a glowing yellow strip that extends across the sidewalk at chest height, between a pair of slender blue pillars. Police energy tape. In the space beyond it, detectives and forensics people are milling around a man's body. It lies in a pool of blood, limbs broken and twisted, amidst a scattering of broken grass which glints and sparkles like fine crystal. An upward glance reveals a broken window in the apartment building above.

You have no idea what Watcher_851 looks like. You don't even know his real name. But unless there's an absurd coincidence...

"They haven't sealed off the building," you say, gesturing at the door to the block. It lies outside the energy tape's cordon. There isn't even a cop standing guard there.

"He didn't have police insurance," replies a tall black guy with dreadlocks down to his waist. "The bastards don't care about people who don't pay."

One of the cops looks over and taps his visor -- presumably scanning the dreadlocked gentleman and confirming that he isn't a paying customer -- before sticking his middle finger up.

"If he died up there," he continues, "they wouldn't even have shown up. Privatized cops! What a fuc-"

He's still talking behind you as you slip away, and make for the unguarded doorway.

My earnest desire was to leave the village as swiftly as possible.

I have since been informed by learned men that there are rational explanations for a person suffering from certain mental derangements being able to speak in tongues which they have never been known to study. However, no such rationality or knowledge occupied my mind at the time of the exploits described. In the wilds of Africa, with the young girl's eyes swimming before my vision and pagan chants ringing within my ears, I admit that I wasn't entirely immune from the superstitious dread which had grasped hold of Piss-pot and the other villagers. Furthermore, I feared what the natives might do under the circumstances. The glaring, bloodshot gazes of his priests were filled with the terrible sort of fanaticism which may incite savages to any manner of atrocity. My association with the chieftain might not have been sufficient to restrain them from opening our throats over their fire, in the hope of satisfying whatever dark and monstrous gods were the objects of their entreaties.

Judith Ashdown was adamant, however. The very same circumstances which to me seemed to urge our departure were, to her, irresistible reasons to remain. She spoke of her unwillingness to desert a child in the midst of such plight, though I rather suspected she was also keen to proselytise through deed as it were. Triumphing over the supposed evil spirit with a Bible in her hands and a sanctimonious look on her face, and winning an innings for Christendom after the priests' own gods had retired from the wicket with a duck's egg, was the sort of thing missionaries lived for. Damn their priggish, pious hides, I thought! The lady told me that I was at liberty to do as I sought fit, but that she would stay in the village to call upon Jesus and whatnot.

This placed me in a rather unwelcome position. William Ashdown's demise had been unfortunate, but surely no one could have expected me to play nursemaid to a milksop of a man. With a woman, on the other hand, things were of course entirely different. Neither my conscience nor my reputation would have gone uninjured had I left her to be sacrificed by native priests or else gobbled up by discerning cannibals. Therefore I was forced to stay in Piss-pot's village and continue in my role as her guardian and protector.

Judith demanded that they put an end to their ritual, so that she might employ her own rather less boisterous faith without warring against their cacophony. Piss-pot proved surprisingly amenable to this. I suppose piety is all well and good after a victory, but less welcome when it seems to be doing no good. He may also have decided that an affliction which compelled his daughter to speak English might best be entrusted to an equally English solution. Whatever the reason, he went outside and shouted like Stentor himself. The chanting and dancing stopped, thank God (literally as well as figuratively, one supposes), and there followed a babble of chattering, malcontented voices.

I went to the hut's doorway to observe. The tasselled priests were gibbering, and all but jumping up and down in their excitement. Piss-pot was bellowing at them in return, and their voices got in such a tangle that even my knowledge of their lingo wasn't equal to the task of deciphering the conversation (if it could even be dignified as such). It rather reminded me of a parliamentary debate. Whilst it was going on, my eyes alighted on a tall savage who stood on the other side of the fire. He was an unpleasant enough wretch to look upon, with an ugly, scarred face and a thickset body that carried both the muscle of war and the fat of excess. Smoke half obscured him as it shifted and billowed, making his aspect positively infernal and leaving his hideous face floating amidst the rising tendrils so that it seemed like the countenance of a terrible phantom. He was silent, leaving the babbling to Piss-pot and the others.

When he finally spoke, in a deep, growling voice that reminded me of a lion, the rest of them shut up like schoolchildren whose master had just walked in holding his birch. Then he jumped clean over the fire, like a bloody racehorse, through the smoke and flames. The others gaped at him. It was a damned good jump, mad fool thing as it was, but I would later learn that they were taken aback for quite another reason. If a vicar stood up in his church and treated the altar as a hurdle, we would likely think he'd taken leave of his senses or been at the communion wine. Among the natives, however, leaping over the sacred fire was as significant an act as nailing theses to the door of a cathedral.

Even without knowing such things, the scene in front of me made me hold my breath and reach for the revolver at my belt. The scarred savage stood before Piss-pot, glaring at him as though he were about to eat him. Without the smoke between us, I could now see that his tassels were more elaborate than those the other priests wore, and between loincloth and neck his dark skin was smeared with white and yellow paint that seemed to echo and magnify the scars of his face. I took him to be the pontifex maximus of the tribe, as it were.

"You insult the gods!" the fellow said. "Only they can save your daughter, not the white god!"

"Silence, Walnut!" Piss-pot said. ('Walnut' was what the name sounded like, anyway.) "Your dancing and chanting have done nothing! The evil spirit still has her!"

They went back and forth, each of them shouting; Piss-pot about his rights as chief, Walnut about plagues and blasphemy and all sorts of other religious claptrap. Had the situation been less perturbing, I might have grinned at this primitive demonstration of the age-old struggle between statesmen and clergy. In the end, as so often occurs, the powers of this world overcame those of the next. Piss-pot waved one of his warriors over, snatched the spear from the man's hand, and brandished it over his head. That settled the matter quickly enough. Plagues and omens may sound impressive when they fly from a fanatic's tongue amidst his frothing spittle, but they're rather inadequate in the face of a sharp weapon. Walnut stomped away, the other priests scurrying behind him. He looked back over his shoulder as he went, and his eyes met mine. The expression with which he favoured me was positively murderous, which I thought was rather uncharitable under the circumstances. It was hardly my fault Mrs. Ashdown's do-gooding had interfered with his savage religion. Nevertheless, I knew I would have to remain vigilant and regard him as an enemy.

Defenestrators

You take the stairs three at a time. There are so many flights of steps that it's like climbing a mountain. But as soon as you arrive at the right landing, and ease the door open, you know you made the right decision.

There's a woman in the hallway, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and clutching a blaster. Her eyes and weapon are trained on the elevator doors -- it takes a second for the former to turn to the stairwell entrance. You're on her before the latter can follow suit. In an instant you have her pressed up against the wall, the gun torn from her grasp.

"Kalaxia," you say.

She stops struggling.

"Why'd they send you?" she asks. "We're almost done."

The top of your helmeted head crashes against her jaw. She crumples without a sound. You had to make sure she was an enemy, not a concerned neighbor.

Further up the corridor, one of the apartment doors is ajar. Number 903. Watcher_851's place. You drift towards it, keeping your footsteps silent, and glance at the hinges. They look like they'd creak. In that case...

You kick the door open.

There's a living room beyond the entrance, a smashed window directly opposite the door. Its lingering shards gleam with accusations of murder. The two men inside -- both dressed in unremarkable civilian clothing like the girl in the passage -- freeze like naughty children caught in the middle of a misdeed. One's standing in front of a computer, his fingers paused in mid keystroke as he turns to you. The other's holding a small recording device, filming what's on the wall.

The amateur filmmaker drops his camera and throws his body into a roll. His partner snatches a gun from the desk. You slip aside as crimson beams lance through the doorway, and brace yourself against the wall.

No psionic attacks, you muse. They're just thugs. Basic military training, perhaps.

Another pair of beams zap past you, and scar the wall opposite. After two heartbeats, they fire again. This time it doesn't go unanswered.

You twist round and throw yourself down across the doorway, lying on your right-hand side. Two pulls of the trigger. Two brains pierced by searing blasts.

It transpired that Piss-pot and Walnut need not have argued, for no more than ten minutes later it began to rain with such intensity that the priests' fire was extinguished, and dancing around the smoking ashes would have been a surer path to pneumonia than divine favour. The villagers fled to their homes, and though my intention had been to station myself outside the hut in which the girl lay and Judith ministered, so that I could best observe Walnut or any other potential foe should they approach, I had no wish to be drenched. However, I knew full well that withdrawing to the hut's interior and carrying out my duties beyond the reach of intemperate nature would leave us vulnerable. If my military experience had taught me anything, beyond a healthy disdain for official ineptitude and how to proposition a woman in Hindi, it was that seeing one's enemies from a distance was infinitely preferable to having them arrive on one's doorstep unannounced. Therefore I sought out my retainers, intending that they should relieve me at sentry duty.

I found the lazy buggers lounging beneath a canopy, and my lip curled at this demonstration of native sloth and indolence. Small wonder that we industrious Britons had built ourselves a splendid empire, whilst they wore grass skirts and danced around fires! (Let this be a lesson to those politicians and do-gooders who forever harp on about the plight of factory workers and miners. The reforms they call for would surely imbue our lower classes with the same wretched lethargy!) I commanded them to remove themselves to the space before the hut, so that they might keep watch and inform me of any signs of trouble. They moaned and exclaimed, of course, but a few hefty kicks put an end to their slacking.

With my servants standing guard outside, I joined Mrs. Ashdown and the girl (whose name sounded very much like 'Daffodil'). Judith was sat beside the child, on a small trunk she'd had the natives bring in, clutching her Bible in one hand and a cross in the other, leaning her head towards Daffodil and causing the lantern light to surround her face like a halo. My God, I thought, it's like an illustration from one of those bloody pamphlets missionary organizations press upon you back home, urging you to give your pounds and shillings so they can provide natives with trousers and Testaments (neither of which they especially desire, in my experience).

Judith was silent, for the moment seemingly content to listen to the girl's words, which were so soft now as to be almost drowned out by the patter of the rain. I crouched down on the other side of Daffodil, curious as to what she was saying. As before, she was speaking English as fluently as any Briton, though her accent was one I couldn't place, and lent her speech a strange, unearthly air. Her voice trembled between a near whisper and louder, more insistent tones, as she uttered nonsense about dragons and ogres, castles and crystal caverns, orange and cyan eyes, and other fantastical things (enveloped in sentences that were grammatically exact, in spite of the absurdities they contained). I have said that she was speaking our language, as indeed she was. However, she also included words which, as far as I could discern, were fabricated, belonging neither to the civilised tongue of Shakespeare and Pope nor to her own primitive lingo. These didn't pour from her lips as random babble, but were part of otherwise intelligible statements. Furthermore, the same meaningless words were each repeated throughout her discourse, demonstrating them to be embedded quite firmly in the Daffodil's mind rather than spoken on a deranged whim.

It's intriguing how one's memory works. For although I've forgotten most of the ridiculous things she said in English, some of those fabricated words have lingered in my mind to this very day:

Tore-gill
Croo-na
Kus-ahn
Ca-lak-see-a

It was the lattermost of these, the very same thing she had voiced when we first entered the hut, that she articulated the most often, and which finally spurred Judith Ashdown to action. While Daffodil's ramblings were articulate, if befuddling, the missionary merely listened and observed. Then, late in the evening, after the rain had stopped, a terrible shudder racked the child's body. I once saw a poor bugger in the grip of an epileptic fit, and the feeble thrashing of her limbs, the rolling of her eyes, were just the same. It was an unpleasant sight to behold, as though the little girl were in her death throes, and it filled me with concern for Mrs. Ashdown and myself. If Piss-pot's daughter died while Judith and I were alone with her (for he, whether through fatherly anguish or for some superstitious reason, had retired to a different hut), would the chieftain hold us responsible? Would we be forced to fight for our lives, and shoot our way out of the village, braving rains of hurled spears and charging savages? These thoughts rumbled in my mind while Daffodil convulsed, but thankfully the fit lasted no more than a few seconds (though it seemed far, far longer, as terrible situations so often do). When it came to an end, and her small body subsided into calm, there was no trace of her former bewildering eloquence. Instead she chanted that single word of four syllables in a dull voice, over and over again.

"Ca-lak-see-a! Ca-lak-see-a! Ca-lak-see-a!"

In that moment, as the girl's condition appeared to worsen, Judith's eyes hardened like those of a proud soldier who's seen enemies lay their hands on his Regimental Colours. She set her cross down on her lap, opened her Bible, and steeled herself for battle.

The Woman on the Wall

"Barracuda?" you murmur.

It's the first thing you see when you enter the room, after glancing at the bodies to make sure your shooting was lethal. A long noticeboard dominates the right-hand wall -- the one your late assailant was filming. It's covered in a haphazard assortment of papers, images, and electronic screens. Some of the pictures are maps of systems, or diagrams of planets. Another shows a woman wearing a familiar mask, but the rest of her attire and the quality of the photography seem archaic... Victorian, like the costumes some of the guests were wearing aboard the Mysterious Murder.

But none of these arrest your attention so much as the bright illustration in the very middle of the board. It's a publicity shot of Screaming Barracuda.

Watcher_851's cryptic messages said he wanted to be introduced to an acquaintance of yours.

Watcher_851...

You step over to the computer. The information is right there in front of your face. Your other enemy did the work for you.

Kevin Arctora. That was his name.

You sigh. If you'd got here a little earlier, then maybe...

That thought drifts away when you glance at the neighboring monitor. It's a paused video clip, showing a crowded sports stadium. The stands are packed with fans, their faces frozen in mid cheer, their banners in mid flutter. Two rows of armored athletes stand on the grass, lined up like soldiers awaiting inspection. One team wears the emerald uniforms of the Sian Dragons.

There's Talia... Her helmet's on, but you'd know her anywhere. It's the match between the Dragons and the Megas, the one the gunslinger told you about in her message. You'd been meaning to watch that. Why would Arctora...

You press the play button.

The Sian anthem bursts into life, partway through the first verse. That's Screaming Barracuda's voice, and-

Your mind swims. Colors swirl at the edges of your vision.

"Kasan..."

You blink it away, forcing your mind to steel itself, and click the pause button.

Her singing... It felt like... Yes... It was almost like being back in Sun Xi's house on Diogenes, when she entered your thoughts and whisked you off through surreal, fantastic tapestries of sight and sound.

You've always suspected Screaming Barracuda has some kind of latent psionic power, but nothing like...

Wait... Wasn't there...

Pinned on the notice board, among the various papers, is a flyer that looks like it was printed from Screaming Barracuda's website. It announces a gig. A gig that's taking place right now, here in Destev.

You pick up the goon's camera. The words 'Connection Terminated' blink at you from the little screen. He was uploading his footage somewhere...

The woman in the green hoody is groaning and stirring in the hallway when you head back to the stairwell. A single shot to the head puts a stop to that. There isn't time to interrogate her, or take prisoners. Unless you miss your guess, Barracuda's in trouble.

Noir's azure slits stared at Emera Tresc's image on the cockpit's communications screen.

"I am two hours from the planet," he said.

"The rest of Bonderbrand's men are already in Destev," she replied. "They're on their way as we speak."

"Order them to take the Piscarian. But if [Player Name] is there... She is mine."

Daffodil continued to repeat the mysterious word, whilst Mrs. Ashdown paged through her Bible. The missionary woman's eyes blazed with zealotry when she found what she sought, and she thrust her finger at a passage with such strength that it made me think of Jael hammering the tent peg into Sisera's skull. I half expected Judith's digit to pierce pages and leather cover alike. When she spoke, returning fire with scripture, her voice was no less impressive.

"And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."

As I've said, the workings of human mind and memory can be damned strange. Even in the dark depths of Africa, faced with supernatural dread at which I would once have scoffed, seeing a missionary woman wield the Bible as a weapon of spiritual warfare, my thoughts found their way back to my schoolboy days. I remembered old Hardwick, our headmaster, and as pious and priggish a chap as you could ever have the misfortune to encounter, standing at his lectern and speaking those very same verses during one of his tiresome Sunday sermons (which proved to be nothing compared with the sermon he delivered for my sole benefit on the night I was expelled for the defenestration of a prefect during a school mutiny).

Daffodil stared up at the hut's roof, though I suspect that in her delirium she was seeing nothing quite so mundane, and kept uttering the word which seemed to now encompass the entirety of her suffering and delusions.

"Cal-ak-see-a! Cal-ak-see-a! Cal-ak-see-a!"

Her voice increased in loudness and intensity, until those four syllables became ammunition in an unending fusillade. Judith continued to respond, the pages of her Bible turning first in one direction and then the other, as she scoured through it with a proficiency that would have made a vicar gape in awe. Each time her finger would transfix a certain verse, which her lips would then intone.

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."

Mrs. Ashdown's voice became louder and stronger too, as though emboldened and invigorated by every recitation. Soon the lady's words and the girl's were battering against one another, clashing like lines of infantry wielding sabres and bayonets, wreaking carnage and giving no quarter. Such was the ferocity of the combat that I was torn between leaving the hut to escape it and remaining to see whose formations would break first. In the end I found myself rooted to the spot, the lone observer of a terrible battle. I looked from black face to white, child's to woman's, savage's to Briton's, and saw the same determined zeal in both their eyes.

Beads of sweat grew on the missionary's brow as the verses continued to fire from her lips, and her breathing was laboured. Her body began to shudder as Daffodil's had when in the midst of her fit, the Bible trembling in her grasp. Judith seemed on the very brink of collapse, her mind and body strained to their utmost. I called out for her to cease, and took hold of her arm to draw her from the hut and away from that dreadful conflict. She refused to yield, however, and shook my hand away before unleashing another salvo of scripture.

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death."

Judith shrieked that final word, and then fainted. I caught her in my arms as she toppled, before she could fall from the trunk onto the stamped-down dirt floor. She recovered her senses almost immediately, and her eyes opened to reveal a triumphant gleam. There was silence in the hut, save for the soft sound of Daffodil's snoring. The girl had drifted off to sleep.

I urged Mrs. Ashdown to rest, as the woman was exhausted. She refused, however, and said she wished to pray over the girl as she slept, for she feared that although the worst had passed, the evil spirit hadn't yet been exorcised. It was then that I became aware of my own tremendous fatigue. The day's exploits had taken their toll on me, and no religious zeal urged my continued wakefulness as it did hers. Therefore I decided to rest on a pile of animal hides, and consigned myself to the arms of Morpheus.

Encore

"Ticket scans," the security guard said. He waved his device. "Biometric or card?"

"Lasers," one of the men replied.

"Huh?"

He drew his weapon and fired. The guard collapsed, clutching his wounded chest. Two more bouncers in black t-shirts came out of the doorway on the left, their weapons blazing. One of the gatecrashers went down. The others raked the pair with gunfire.

"Who's got stunners?" the leader yelled, as they stormed down the wide passage.

Two of the others shouted that they did.

"The rest of you, keep the crowd off them. Kill as many as you need to. But don't shoot the fish-bitch! Got it?"

There was another chorus of affirmation. Then they barged their way through the black double doors, opening the soundproof barrier, and their leader's words were washed away on a tide of ear-rupturing song.

"...so she shot him in the face!
Just shot him in the fa-a-a-a-ace!
Yeah, she shot him in the face!
Oh, oh, oh, in the fa-a-a-a-ace!"

Screaming Barracuda leaned her head back and screeched her chorus at the heavens -- up into the starry night that hung overhead, beyond the huge lattice of windows that made up the club's ceiling. Her fingers worked Wailing Doom's strings, lending its shriek to her own, exploding from all the speakers and amplifiers in a glorious bombardment of sound.

"In the fa-a-a-a-a-a-ce!"

Something red flashed in the corner of her vision.

Bloody wankers, she thought. They were supposed to start the lasers going in the next verse. Then there was a blue flash, on the other side.

Barracuda tilted her head back down, and her eyes widened.

It was pandemonium: Bodies on the floor. People screaming, running in all directions. Security guards zapping away, locked in a firefight with a band of gunmen who were fanning out through the fleeing crowds.

"Oh, hell!" she screamed.

Her head darted this way and that, looking for a safe escape route through the raging battle. Instead, she found herself staring down the barrel of a weapon. The man above it grinned, parting his goatee. Then he pulled the trigger.

I'm not given to vivid or memorable dreams, save on occasions when I've eaten too much cheese before retiring. However, on that night my slumbering mind was a tempest of absurdities.

First I was back at school, in the great hall with its dark oak-panelled walls, where generations of boys had stood in their neat rows and columns as though in martial order, ready to answer the roll. My boyhood chums and adversaries were lined up beside and behind me, all awaiting the calling of our names. However, instead of a master standing on the platform before us, there was a tall savage with a scarred face, clad in a loincloth, wearing brightly coloured tassels around his strong yet flabby limbs.

"I say," remarked Fraser, one of the boys in my form, "it's awfully thick, having a coloured chap for a master."

Some of the others whispered for him to be quiet, before one of the prefects gave him six. However, Fraser had never been the chap to quail before authority.

"I should write to my governor," he said, "and ask him to send me somewhere else. I bet there are no savages at Eton!"

"Now you've done it," whispered Bradman.

One of the prefects stepped out from the sixth form's ranks and approached us. He too was a coloured tribesman, wearing a loincloth and tassels, with a spear under his arm in place of the customary ashplant. Fraser began to utter another impertinence (he was always one to cheek the prefects, no matter how many times they made him bend over), but was silenced when the brute pulled him out of the line, spun him around with an iron grip on his collar, readied the spear, and stabbed the poor chap in the buttocks.

"Ow! Stop! Help! Geroff, you beast! Fire! Murder! Yarooooo!"

"Oh, show a bit of pluck," said Bradman.

"Stiff upper lip, what?" said Fauntleby.

Fraser continued to scream, however, until the prefect had finished administering his six, at which point the collar was released and he fell to the floor, where he lay sobbing. The savage went back to stand with the rest of the sixth form. I must say, had my old school administered discipline thus, with the spear instead of the cane, I might never have transgressed.

With the miscreant suitably chastised, Dr. Walnut (as my dreaming mind dubbed him) began to call the names.

"Adams," said the savage, in the perfect simulacrum of Hardwick's voice.

"Calakseea!"

"Alderdice."

"Calakseea!"

I looked around, bewildered, as boy after boy answered their name with "Calakseea!" instead of "Adsum!".

"Caruthers!"

Dr. Walnut glared down at me.

"Adsum!" I said.

Laughter rippled through the hall, the whole school mocking me save for the prefects, who instead growled and waved their spears.

"Caruthers!" he repeated. Now Dr. Walnut too was brandishing a spear.

"Calakseea!" I cried.

"Calakseea! Calakseea! Calakseea!" Everyone was chanting: Dr. Walnut, the prefects, Bradman, Fraser as he lay bleeding on the floor, and all of the other boys. The hall was filled with a maddening din that thudded like the beating of a monstrous heart.

"Calakseea! Calakseea! Calakseea!"

I turned this way and that, wondering if anyone else was immune from this derangement that had taken the entire school. To my right the great men of the sixth were chanting. On my left the little fags of the second and third forms were doing the same. From the palatine to the plebs, as it were, all had been overcome. Then my eyes alighted on Morgan of my own form, the fifth (which happened to be the form in which I ended my academic career through defenestration and expulsion, the latter inflicted on me and the former thankfully inflicted by me). Whilst the men before him and behind him, and on either of his flanks, were intoning that nonsensical word, his lips were sealed.

"They've all gone mad!" I cried out to him. "We have to do something, old chap!"

Morgan nodded, and opened his mouth. Instead of the expected reply, perhaps words of alarm, or the expounding of some stratagem which we might have used to quell, or escape from, that bedlam, he began to sing.

"Hark! I hear the foe advancing,
Barbed steeds are proudly prancing,
Helmets, in the sunbeam glancing,
Glitter through the trees,
Men of Harlech! Lie ye dreaming?
See you not their falchions gleaming,
While their pennons, gaily streaming,
Flutter to the breeze?"

It was the same blasted song he used to sing during football matches, God alone knows why, and whenever he was three sheets in the wind (which was bloody often, as I know full well, since I was usually drinking with him and in no better state). I'd never cared for the damn thing before, but in that moment I felt like shaking him by the hand. The boys around him joined in, singing the Welsh battle hymn instead of chanting that nonsense word, then those around them, and so on. It became a great wave washing through the hall, until every voice was added to the song. Even Dr. Walnut was singing.

The world around me changed, as it so often does in dreams, becoming a battlefield filled with screaming men, billowing smoke, and booming artillery. My school chums were around me, the entire fifth form, still in their neat ranks but now clutching rifles and dressed in martial uniform, transported from the school hall to a place no less familiar and no more welcome. I knew it immediately, for some things are seared into one's memories and can never be displaced. We were in northern India, thrust into the midst of one of those terrible engagements we fought against that most dreadful of foes. There they were ahead of us, advancing through the smoke in fine order, each man marching in perfect lock-step with his fellows. Swarthy faces with long, thick beards glared from turbaned heads, above uniforms of European cut.

Morgan and the others were still singing, the song continuing unbroken even as the rifles banged, the cannons roared, and the Khalsa came towards us.

"From the rocks rebounding,
Let the war-cry sounding,
Summon all at Cambria's call,
The haughty foe surrounding."

Then we were charging, our bayonets pointed towards our enemies. The Sikhs were charging as well, brandishing their swords, their beards billowing like the smoke, eyes glowering with the promise of death.

"Men of Harlech! On to glory,
See your banner, famed in story,
Waves these burning words before ye,
'Britain scorns to yield!'"

My bayonet was a bare inch from a man's chest, and his slashing sword no further from my face, when my eyes opened. The Indian battlefield vanished, and I blinked in astonishment as the inside of the hut usurped its place in my consciousness. Remembrance flooded in to remind me of my situation, and assure me that I had awoken, yet I was sure I must still be dreaming, for the song continued. Utter confusion gripped me as Morgan's military march rang in my waking ears at it had in my dreaming ones. Daffodil was singing it, as if she had somehow reached into my slumbering mind and drawn the music forth (though of course my next thought landed on truth rather than superstition, and understood that it was quite the opposite; her singing must have shaped that portion of my dreams). Some seconds passed before I realized that I was both correct and mistaken. The tune was the same as it had been in the school hall, and then on the battlefield, but the words were unfamiliar.

The bewilderment I experienced then, and the passing of years between that time and the present, have robbed me of any clear recollection of her song's words, save for a single triplet which has lingered.

"Men of Croona, with blood splattered,
Leaving corpses dead and battered,
Have all wretched foemen scattered."

These three rhyming lines are those which sounded as I gazed upon the young native girl, who lay on her bed singing, while the missionary sat beside her, reading from the Bible. They continued as the flap that served as the hut's door was pushed aside, revealing a muscular savage with tasselled limbs and painted flesh. It was Walnut; his eyes blazed orange in the lantern's light, as did the blade of his spear.

Screaming Barracuda

A blast of blue energy fizzed and crackled over Barracuda's green flesh, along the ridge of the fin that ran across the top of her skull. Her body began to slump. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

"I got her!" the goon yelled. "I-"

He gawped. She was still standing -- her eyes closed, face serene. Still standing, after a shock that would have put down a man twice her weight.

"Fire again!" someone screamed at his shoulder. "Give the bitch another!"

He aimed the weapon.

Barracuda's hand slashed across the strings.

He screamed.

It's like a tidal wave. The club's disgorging its denizens, spewing forth an immense flood of humans and aliens, filling the street beyond with shrieks and chaos. It's a good thing you left your bike in an alleyway. The street would have been impassable on it.

Even on foot, pressing through the mass, forcing your way into the gaps, it's hard enough. You wince as your elbows clip faces here and there. There'll be a few black eyes tomorrow. But it's either that or be swept along with them.

At last you reach the tail end of the exodus, and your way is unimpeded as you enter the club, sprint down the passage, push the doors open... And nearly get blasted back out again.

Sound. Horrendous, agonizing sound, batters you -- mocking your aural implant's attempts to balance and counteract it.

Screaming Barracuda's on the stage, her eyes closed. She's playing her guitar, weaving her cacophonous song as though the room were still packed instead of strewn with corpses. The survivors are rolling on the floor, their hands pressed against their ears.

"Barra!" you shout. But it's like spitting into a tsunami.

Your ears are hammering at your brain, demanding, begging, pleading, to be taken away from here -- for you to turn around and run as fast and as far as you can.

Instead you go forward, into the musical maelstrom.

---

The world's spinning, a whirling vortex of tempestuous sound and blending, blurring colors. And she's at the nexus, her eyes still closed, her face as calm as if she were basking in a hot tub.

"Barra!"

But it's still no use. Even here, so close that you can almost feel your ears bleeding and the flesh flaying from your bones beneath lashing sonic whips, she can't hear you.

So you stagger forward, groaning at the onslaught, and punch her in the stomach.

Breath rushes out of her lungs in an explosive gasp. Her eyes open. And, glory of glories, all praises be to God and heaven, the guitar falls from her hands.

"You... you... goddamn bitch! You..." She groans, then looks around. Her eyes bulge at the carnage. "What the hell? What happened? Who the-"

You tap the side of your helmet, making your visor retract.

"[Player Name]? What's going on?"

"I'll explain." You grab her guitar and press it into her arms. "But first we should get out of here."

Judith turned, saw him, and screamed at the glint of murder in his glare. Daffodil continued to sing, her delirium unaffected even by the spectre of violent death.

My revolver belt and rifles were a few feet away, but they may as well have been in London or Delhi, for as Walnut lunged into the hut I knew that I could never seize, ready, and aim a weapon before the savage's spear struck. Therefore I rose and sprang in the same instant, not for my gear but at the high priest. Walnut's spear was plunging towards his victim when my body flew at his. It was only in that instant that I saw he wasn't aiming for Mrs. Ashdown. The deadly spear was thrusting at Daffodil.

I slammed into him, and bore his muscular body backwards, sending the two of us through the hide flap, into the darkness beyond, where we tumbled to the mud outside the hut. There we lay struggling, he clawing and gouging at my face like an animal (for the spear had fallen from his hands; either he had been disarmed during our collision, or he had dropped the weapon, knowing it was useless without the space to bring its point to bear), and I driving my fists into his face.

"She must die!" howled Walnut. "She must die!"

I made no reply save with my right fist, which stuck the hardest punch I have ever inflicted either for sport or in earnest, a tremendous blow that crashed against his jaw and left his great white eyes rolling in his head. His limbs fell away from my face and throat, and flopped powerless at his sides. Other natives were emerging from their huts then, raising a great hue and cry. Several babbling voices demanded to know what was going on. My blood was up, however, and I paid the villagers no heed as I snatched up Walnut's spear and drove it into his chest again and again, sending the savage to reap the harvest of his false religion.

The other priests appeared, shrieking and chattering, waving their weapons, but Piss-pot was there too, and he ordered them aside. The chieftain listened to me rattle out my explanation of what had happened, and was so incensed upon learning the truth that he took the spear from my hands, turned to Walnut's minions, and threatened death to any of them who'd known about the high priest's intentions. The priests quailed and grovelled, and promised Piss-pot that none of them had had any suspicion of their master's deeds that night. Their pleas seemed sincere enough to me, and they must have done to the chieftain also, for he ordered them back to their huts rather than to their executions.

It was only then that I began to wonder where my retainers had gone. The bastards were supposed to have been keeping watch outside the hut, as you may recall. I asked if the villagers had seen anything of them, and learned that they had fled from the settlement, taking my baggage with them. The damned rascals! Clearly I hadn't thrashed them enough, and their cowardice had overcome their duty. I vowed I'd teach them a lesson, though of course there was little I could do that night, so I returned to the hut, where little Daffodil had slipped back into slumber. Judith Ashdown was praying beside her, though she raised an inquisitive face to mine when I came in, and I nodded my reassurance.

We both remained awake through the night, I with my revolver in my hand and my rifle in my lap, she praying in a soft voice so as not to wake the girl. Nor did she wake, until morning had dawned, when she opened her eyes and spoke.

"Who are you?" she asked. The words were in her own language.

The chieftain's joy, and that of the other villagers, can be imagined. Mrs. Ashdown had delivered the child from her affliction, and the natives were all but ready to build a church and cry out for Jesus. However, the bizarre experience had left Judith weary in mind and body. Furthermore, although one might have expected such spiritual victory to have sharpened her missionary zeal, it had instead quenched it. The lady asked me to take her to the coast immediately, where she could arrange her passage back to England. Piss-pot was disappointed to learn that we wouldn't stay for the great celebration he had planned, as was I; the chieftain would have given us a tremendous feast, and, more than likely, the pick of his concubines. However, Judith insisted, and I had to do the chivalrous thing.

At Piss-pot's command, the entire village turned out to see us off, brandishing crosses fashioned from branches and calling out such words of Christian theology as they knew. Judith was silent, however, even when one of the savages beheaded a chicken and splashed its blood about whilst crying, "Yeesus! Yeesus!" Perhaps this was mere fancy, but I almost thought I detected the faintest of smiles on her lips.

Even the priests were present, cheering and clamouring along with the rest, until Judith and I came abreast of them. Then the nearest tasselled savage stared at Mrs. Ashdown with a maddened look on his face, shouted something that was lost in the din, and lunged at her with a knife in his hand. I was watchful, however, for I'd remained suspicious of the late, unlamented Walnut's flock. My revolver was up in an instant, and I put a bullet in his skull. Piss-pot had his warriors seize the other priests, for all their fates had been sealed by that attempt on the missionary's life. I asked him to refrain from butchering them until I'd taken Mrs. Ashdown away, and though he seemed dismayed that she wouldn't witness their punishment, he agreed to my request.

The journey to the coast, in the company of some of Piss-pot's warriors, whom he dispatched to serve as our retainers, and bear such of our possession as hadn't been taken by those damnable thieves, was uneventful. I didn't even catch sight of any quarry worth potting. Though even if I had done, Judith's desire was to make all possible haste, and her face was still grim from her experiences in the village, and the attempt on her life. It was quite plain that the lady was in dire need of the safety and comfort of England's shores. Fortune was on our side, for we were able to arrange her passage on the very same day we arrived at the port, with the aid of a naval chap to whom I sometimes traded ivory and other such treasures from the continent's interior.

Her impending departure from that savage land must have been of immense comfort to Judith. For when I last saw her, before she boarded the vessel, she favoured me with a most dazzling smile, which seemed to illuminate her eyes. I remember being surprised at the time, for I must confess that I've never been one to dwell upon a woman's eyes like a love-struck poet, and so hadn't noticed the curious hue of Mrs. Ashdown's irises until then. They were a delightful blue-green shade, which I've never seen matched before or since.

Noir strode through the chamber, his footsteps slow and measured. His ebon mask was tilted upwards, towards the lattice of big windows and the star-studded vault of night. His azure eyes were dull, as though only half open. He sniffed at the air.

Yes... One sensation above all the others, faint but still discernible, its flavor distinct and unquestionable. [Player Name] had been here.

His eyes flashed brighter, and a low growl escaped his lips. He was too late.

"Hey! You can't be in here!"

Noir turned. A man stood there, dressed in a bright blue police uniform. One hand was on the pistol holstered at his waist.

"Who let you past the cordon?" the cop demanded. "I-"

Noir lunged. Blood splattered across his void-dark mask.

[Player Name] ... His quarry had escaped for now. But she couldn't elude Noir forever. They would meet soon enough...